


When the stars turn to dust

by twilightdazzle



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:09:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9251837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightdazzle/pseuds/twilightdazzle
Summary: Maybe surviving Scarif is the easy part and living afterwards is the hard part.In which Jyn and Cassian attempt to navigate a world they weren't meant to see again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I loooooved the ending to Rogue One, my heart is still a little broken by it and needed some sort of therapy to move on.  
> So after a bit of wine (a bottle) and plenty of Rogue One inspired emotions, we now have this little monster of a story with a lot of healing and a bit of angst too! And Cassian/Jyn of course because this pairing is just killing me with the feels

At first, Jyn feels nothing but peace. The sound of waves rolling softly against the sand, the smell of salt in the air, Cassian’s chest pressed flush against hers, his hands smoothing a slow path along her back, the stubble of his beard gently grazing her cheek. The end is coming, and she is not afraid. If anything, she is ready. She is tired, weary down to the very marrow of her bones, and, for once, she isn’t alone. Cassian is here, and he is enough, more than enough, the only person she could imagine spending her last moments with.

But then comes the heat, a fiery blanket of pain that settles heavy against her chest so she can’t breathe, can’t think. Then the winds, so powerful and tempestuous that she feels Cassian slowly begin to slip out of her arms. Wild panic only just bursts into her stomach and her thin fingers grasp desperately at his shirt – come back, come back, don’t leave – when she is ripped so forcefully off the ground that it feels like all of her bones are cracking beneath the pressure. 

A breath, maybe a scream – Cassian – and then nothing.

 

The first thing she feels when she wakes up is pain. Every inch of her from the tips of her hair to the tips of her toes is pulsing with fire. She tries to breathe, but that rush of air into her lungs only makes her choke for a long agonizing second. Pain means life. Why is she alive?

“You must sleep, Jyn Erso.” The voice is robotic, and Jyn tries desperately to open her eyes but everything is too bright even beneath the watery blur of her sight. 

She thinks she recognizes the smells of the medbay, the medbay on Yavin IV. 

“Cass…Cass…” her voice is a hoarse whisper, like rough sand in her throat, and she almost regrets talking at all.

“Captain Cassian Andor is alive,” the robotic voice replies, seeming to understand what her incoherent mumbles meant.

There’s a sharp prick in her arm and nothingness again. She welcomes it.

 

When she does finally wake up days later, officially this time, without the need for immediate sedation, nothing makes sense.

She’s alive. They are alive. She and Cassian.

But only them.

No Bohdi or K2 or Baze or Chirrut. None of the brave men and women who had so valiantly volunteered to stand beside them, behind them, or before them. She thinks death would hurt less than this because the pain that splits her chest open is unbearable. The way she gasps for breath has the medical droids rolling about in a frenzy, but they back off when they understand it has nothing to do with her physical health. 

All of the beds that should bear her companions are empty except for one. Cassian’s brown skin stood out starkly against the pale sheets, his face serene with unconsciousness. He is bandaged everywhere – his knees, his ribs, his chest, his hands – and his face is a scattered design of cuts and bruises. But his chest is rising and falling like her own.

Jyn swings her legs over the edge of the bed despite the terrible soreness in her limbs and the sharp pains in her ribs, and the droids roll forward in effort to stop her.

“Get the fuck away from me,” she whispers darkly, shoving the robots away roughly and allowing her weak, wobbly legs to support her weight against the cold floor. 

Barefoot and donning only the simple, blue medical gown, she stumbles to Cassian’s bedside and into a waiting chair. Unabashedly, she runs her fingers across the bridge of his nose, the stubble along his jaw, the softness of his closed eyelids. This was supposed to be the last face she saw before her death. This was supposed to be her goodbye.

It takes him several more hours to wake up, and she is there when he does, pressing a shaky but firm hand to his chest when she knows he will immediately try to spring into action. It takes him several more minutes to adjust to the brightness, to the noise, to the life going on around him.  
She pretends not to notice the rapid, pained clenching of his jaw when she tells him that there is no one else, and she pretends he doesn’t notice the agonized, frustrated moisture that coats her eyes. They say nothing because there is nothing to be said, but there is a heavy darkness that lingers between their heartbeats.

Still, she clenches his hand like he is the only anchor that will prevent her from catapulting into space, and he squeezes back.

 

The pair is discharged from the medbay the next day within hours of each other with very stern warnings from both the medical droids and Mon Mothma to put extra care in any daily activity and immediately directed to their new rooms.

Heroes, people whisper as they walk, giving them awed, appreciative looks and handshakes as they pass them. 

Cassian handles it better than she does, Jyn thinks, because after the seventh person to whisper those words of gratitude, she grows irate and uncomfortable, pressing herself further into the captain’s side and directing her gaze to the floor. He says nothing but presses a hand into her back, pushing her forward steadily, but she can feel his fingers flexing and unflexing against the thinness of her shirt. 

Heroes. They aren’t heroes. Baze and Chirrut and Bodhi and K2 are heroes; they are just alive. They are the unfortunate ones to have had their nearly dead bodies pulled from the collapsing land just before they could follow their companions.

They’re limping nearer to Cassian’s room when they suddenly happen upon a group of three young rebels huddled together in the hallway, faces serious and words frantic.

“What’s going on?” Cassian asks, still hoarsely, and the group seems to freeze. They all lick their lips, as if hesitant to admit anything, but the worry that radiates off their bodies immediately puts Jyn on edge, chills running down her spine. “Well?” Cassian continues after a long silence, that authoritative tone coming out sharp and demanding.

A young man steps forward, head hanging low, eyes dark with shadows. “It’s Princess Leia, Captain,” he whispers with trepidation. “She’s been captured. The plans…the plans to the Death Star are lost.”

It’s like the air has been sucked from Jyn’s lungs, like the heat of Lah Mu’s destruction is rushing over them once more. The young rebels must sense the weight of their words because they scamper away quickly, and Cassian roughly pulls her along until the door to his room has shut behind them.

Wide eyed, speechless, she stares at him, brown eyes reflecting the same grief she feels. Nothing, how could they have died for nothing? How could they have lived for nothing?

Before she collapses, Cassian catches her, sinking down until his back is pressed against the hard edge of his bed, her smaller form cradled between his knees and into his chest. She doesn’t cry but she hurts, hurts until she lets Cassian’s steady heartbeat and shaking arms lull her to a terrible sleep.

 

After that, Jyn dreams of a beach. She stands on the shore, watching as the explosion begins to slink toward her. Knee deep in the ocean’s waters stand Cassian and Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut and K2, all facing her, backs to their impending doom. She tries to run to them, but the sand winds around her calves, cementing her into the earth. Cassian runs for her, pushing desperately against the stubbornness of the water. She finally breaks free and lunges for his open arms, but he never catches her, the heat of death enveloping them both as they reach for each other.

After that, she wakes up with the rancid taste of grief on her tongue and sickness in her heart.

 

It’s several days later when they hear the news. They haven’t been able to do much, physically or mentally, except sleep and attempt to heal. Mon Mothma is keeping a very stern eye on them, keeping them off active duty and out of any meetings until she is sure they are in the right state to handle it. So Jyn spends most of her time staring at the walls of her small quarters or wandering around the base in search of Cassian’s terse silence. But nothing can stop news like this from spreading like wildfire.

Jyn is alone in the mess hall when an exuberant, breathless group bursts inside, shouting at the top of their lungs that the Death Star has been destroyed, the weapon has been demolished. She feels nothing for a long moment, only lets the cheers around her envelope all of her senses, lets people inundate her with relived congratulations and words of gratitude before tearing away from the mass and toward the housing quarters. She runs so fast that her eyesight blurs and her still healing body begs her to slow down for just a second, but she doesn’t.

Cassian’s room has been programmed to grant her access, so she slaps her palm down on the access pad, slipping through the door before it has even fully opened. It hisses shut behind her, and she is suddenly enveloped in silence. The rebel captain is sitting on the edge of his bed, sharply eyeing some star charts in his hands, but he springs to attention at her harried, disheveled state.

“Jyn, what-”

“They did it,” she announces breathlessly, in a voice that almost sounds foreign to herself. “Skywalker has destroyed the Death Star.”

His dark brown eyes reveal nothing for a long moment, dark hair falling low over his brow and scruffy face hard and unyielding. She struggles to catch her breath, the high of excitement and relief making her blood surge and heart hammer.

Then, his eyes lock with the forest green of her own, and he makes two strong, unwavering steps toward her, lips collapsing onto her own with such force that their teeth knock. Jyn doesn’t hesitate for a second, returning his kiss with a vigor that surprises neither of them. She couldn’t lie to herself and say she didn’t want this because she did, so badly that it had seared a permanent desire into her gut. 

She matches him move for move. When his tongue savagely ravages her mouth, she pushes back hard enough that it sends them tumbling onto the bed until she settles heavily into his lap. When his hands press reactively into the dents of her hips and press her down into his hardening length, she pulls his shirt over his head, dragging her nails along his back for good measure. They sigh together and grind together until their naked bodies are pressed flushed against one another, not even a molecule of space between them. Jyn’s eyes roll back in her head when she leans over him, cropped brown hair glancing over her collarbones, and he leans up to suck roughly on the spot just behind her ear. His hands glide up her torso, thumbs passing over her nipples so gently that she moans wantonly into the open air, and he shudders beneath her. 

Sensually, she grinds down on his length, not quite letting him slip inside her, and the tortured groan he gives in response is reward enough. The heat on Scarif was nothing to what she felt now; she was being consumed, devoured, penetrated, obliterated by the man beneath her. It had been so long since she’d felt a man, but she’d never felt one like this. His coarse fingers press suddenly inside of her, and her back arches toward him in rapture, mouth open and fingers tangling desperately in his dark locks. His fingers plunge into her roughly, exactly the way she wants it, and she moves her hips in time with his wrist, nails dragging along his biceps. 

Suddenly her back is to the stiff mattress, his weight settles between her legs, and she welcomes him wholeheartedly. 

“Cassian,” she gasps, and this one brief word seems to propel him forward, his hard, thick length surging deliciously into her aching warmth.

The breathe together in one gasp before he drives forward, pounding into her with a rhythm that makes her teeth rattle. Despite all of their aches and pains, they join together in a combination of passion and strength, neither soft nor gentle, and she wouldn’t ask for it any other way. Jyn surprises herself by hiking her legs high upon his waist and letting him set the pace, meeting his hips with her own and pressing herself tighter against him. 

He whispers things to her in a language she doesn’t understand, but the words are beautiful, so they must mean beautiful things. Jyn has never been able to experience beautiful things before, so she takes it now without question, too caught up in the feel of his bare chest against hers to care if this was a bad idea. When she comes, he captures her mouth in a kiss so deep, the moan travels out of her throat and crawls back up his own, and they ride out their waves of bliss leisurely. 

After, be breathes deeply into her neck, and while his weight had been welcome before, now it just feels like too much. Because everything still hurts. Even after the destruction of the Death Star and the feel of his skin against hers, she can’t shake that grief away, can’t escape its dark, greedy fingertips. Because the two of them are still alive, but everyone else is not.

He must feel the same because, before she drifts to sleep, she feels him roll off of her until she’s looking at his back, tanned and slightly scarred.

He’s gone when she wakes up.

 

Vulnerability was never something Jyn had the luxury of allowing herself to feel. There was never a time for vulnerability during a war. And her whole life had been a war. 

So even now, a whole week after her…incident with Cassian, Jyn felt pointedly naked, like a certain pair of eyes could look at her a little too closely and see things she didn’t want to be seen. Waking up that next morning to an empty bed had been a relief, really. Obviously, Cassian had felt the same and was willing to give them both a way out, and of course she was happily going to take it. This wasn’t a time for intimacy or relief anyway; this was a time for war.

But the fight had all but left her. The fire she had once felt raging in her heart was nothing more than the soft warmth of cooling embers. Everywhere she went, everything she did, she was reminded of the family that could have been; of her mother and father and that little girl who almost could’ve had that happy ending, of Rogue One and the idea that they would sacrifice it all for a cause they had just been introduced to. 

And now she and Cassian were the only ones left, and they hadn’t spoken in a week. Ducking out of the room when the other came in, pointedly avoiding each other’s gazes when they passed in the narrow halls, uncomfortable to the point of pain. So maybe she was relieved when Cassian wasn’t there the morning after…or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was used to people not sticking around when it got tough, but maybe this time she’d hoped it would be different. Maybe she still passed by his bunk every night after another nightmare and ached for a moment of genuine understanding.

And maybe she was lost and didn’t know the way back.

 

It wasn’t as easy to find your place in a rebellion as Jyn had initially thought on the way to Scarif all those weeks ago. Back then, she’d known her place and her purpose, had been prepared to die alongside her comrades – friends – with the unyielding desire to make use of the sacrifices her father had so valiantly made. 

Now she feels like she is lingering in some sort of unsure, pained limbo. While the faces of K2, Bodhi, Chirrut, and Baze lingered behind her eyelids during restless, drawn out nights, the lack of Cassian’s reassuring presence settled heavy over her chest during her wandering, restless days. Loneliness was normal for her, but this was the first time she’d truly lost friends, the first time she’d had something taken from her that wasn’t a result of her own inability to socialize or the natural distance life often brought. She had lost all her friends, all that was left of her family, and she isn’t sure what there is left to fight for anymore. She doesn’t have a place here in this rebellion, but she knows she doesn’t have a place in any other part of the galaxy either. 

Maybe…maybe dying on Scarif had been her purpose, and she’d only defied the orders of the Force. 

Jyn stood up a little straighter as she entered the base’s main conference room where Mon Mothma stood waiting for her. The older woman had requested her presence only a few minutes ago – a message she had received from a teenaged rebel who looked both intrigued and intimidated by her presence – and slowly made her way through the bustling movement of the base with only slight curiosity. 

“Jyn,” Mon Mothma greets her solemnly with a nod.

“Jyn Erso,” comes the smiling greeting of Princess Leia Organa. Jyn has only met her once before but has already decided that she likes her. She is young but carries with her the wisdom and conviction of someone much older, exudes an effervescent hope that Jyn would even fee herself if…if things were different. “I hope the base has treated you well.”

Jyn nods sharply. “It has,” she responds briefly, her voice sounding unsteady with misuse. The fair skinned brunette smiles back at her anyway despite the brusque response.

Mon Mothma, never one to waste time, forges forward despite the obvious discomfort the former criminal radiates. “Jyn, I am a woman of my word. You have done all we’ve asked of you, and the freedom I promised you is yours.” Jyn’s heart doesn’t flutter with excitement as she had once thought it would. “But there are several positions open to you if you wish to stay. You have been an incredible asset to the Rebellion and our cause. I have taken the initiative to recommend you for a spot on one of the intelligence teams. The position is yours if you wish to take it.”

Jyn swallows thickly for a moment, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. Mothma’s level gaze and Princess Organa’s warm one don’t waver as they wait for their answer, and her heart suddenly begins to thrum roughly against her ribcage. She just doesn’t know if she can do it, if she can commit more to this cause when she has so little left to offer at this point. She’s just not sure if she can relight the fire inside her that died on Scarif.  
Princess Organa moves forward when she notices Jyn’s rapid blinking and labored breath and takes her hands gently into her own. “Please, don’t lose hope yet,” she says to her gently. “I can’t imagine the losses you’ve suffered as a result of this war, but there is still hope. For you and for all of us. The Alliance needs a heart like yours. You can find a home here.”

Princess Organa’s eyes are blazing with earnestness and strength, but it’s the word home that ricochets around Jyn’s chest. After a long moment, she nods somewhat stiffly, and a slight smile tugs at Mothma’s lips. 

“Excellent. You are scheduled to meet with your new team in two hours.”

Mothma’s lack of surprise at her acceptance throws her for a second, and, hands shaking slightly and throat suddenly dry, she attempts to take her leave. “I need to go…I need to go find-”

“Captain Andor was put back on active duty yesterday. He is currently off-planet on assignment as of this morning.”

This completely halts her, blood running cold and heart sputtering to an abrupt halt. Though her back is now to the two women, she can feel their pitying stares on her, and she almost turns back around in shock but is immensely glad she didn’t. 

Her eyes water furiously for a second in hurt and disappointment. Cassian would be the third man in her life to abandon her without even an attempt at a goodbye. And while she could understand her father’s circumstances and to some extent Saw Gerrera’s, this is an absolute betrayal. It tastes like something ugly at the back of her throat. 

Snapping her spine into rigidity, she makes no attempt to address Mothma’s words and stalks dazedly back to her bunk.

She spends the next two hours curled up on her bed, trying to swallow down furious tears and figure out how to breathe again. 

 

Being an intelligence officer is challenging. Jyn lacks the subtlety and finesse that allows for most intelligence soldiers to be so successful, but she makes up for it with her tenacity. 

Her new captain, Ren Biggs, is an older man, war hardened and very stern who barks orders to her and her fellow team members with ‘no time for bullshit’ tone. Her other teammates are barely a year or two younger than her – a young woman named Amali and young man who goes by Aster – but they burn with the type of fire and passion Jyn may have felt several months ago. They are light and hopeful, bantering and laughing with each other during downtime but focused and deadly during missions. They seem unperturbed by Jyn’s standoffish demeanor and constantly attempt to engage her in conversation or even light hearted ribbing. Initially, she would shut down their efforts with a lack of response or even an annoyed glare, but they persevered and now she doesn’t mind it so much.

She doesn’t clash with Biggs as much as she thought she would. He seems to understand her fidgetiness, her preferred isolation and general reluctance to open up to anyone. She respects him; she’s heard of the sacrifices he’s made and the things he has lost – a wife and two sons at the hands of an Imperial raid, a brother and niece on Alderaan, countless friends on the beaches of Scarif – and thinks maybe they have many things in common. Despite their mutual understanding, however, it doesn’t stop him from tearing into her every once in a while. She is still too reckless, too stubborn, too hasty, and he scolds her with biting words that often make Amali and Aster incredibly uncomfortable. This is what she is used to though, honesty and harshness. He is not the same type of captain as Cassian, who is a little more malleable and a little more reckless and a little more trusting, but she respects him regardless of these things.

Sometimes their assignments take only a few days, sometimes several months, and Jyn likes those the best because it is incredibly easy to forget about hurt and loss and beaches littered with dead bodies when you’re attempting to extract delicate information from a very dangerous place. It’s between those dangerous places in periods of silence and inactivity, however, that push Jyn back to the collapsing beach, to the ghost laughter and chatter of Chirrut and Baze and K2 and Bodhi, to Cassian’s burning hands on her naked hips and tangled in her hair.

So being an intelligence officer is hard, but being alive is even harder.

 

Despite her best attempts, Amali and Aster become her friends anyway. She is afraid to have friends, but it doesn’t seem like the pair were going to give her a choice in the matter. It happens very slowly, but eventually Jyn begins to smile at their jokes, respond to their questions, feels less like an outsider and more like part of a something again. They are siblings, she learns – not by blood but by choice – and the way they recount growing up together on the streets, digging for food in trashcans and fighting off troublemaking scum, actually makes Jyn’s throat a little tight. 

They are quite the pair, this dark skinned and dark haired girl and her light haired and blue eyed other half. Even Biggs with his militaristic, no nonsense attitude begins to soften slightly, just enough for a brief smile here and there. 

When the first anniversary of Rogue One’s success and destruction comes, Jyn isn’t allowed to retreat into herself. They’re en-route to Tatooine to meet one of Biggs’ contacts, but there are no discussions of strategy. Instead, Amali and Aster regale her with some of their wild tales, eyes bright and faces alive. Even Biggs tosses in a story or two, and though they are not as animated, she is equally as intrigued. They talk until Jyn stands to retire to her bunk, appreciating their efforts but now needing her moment alone. Biggs nods at her understandingly, Aster gives a quick squeeze to her shoulder, and Amali is brave enough to hug her long and hard.

She doesn’t sleep, only lays on her narrow little bed with her eyes closed, listening to the normal clang of parts around the ship and the sound of stars rushing by them at lightspeed. Her fist is closed tightly around her Kyber necklace, a dull throb ricocheting around her chest. She sees all their faces, feels the pain of every single one of their deaths until her throat begins to close painfully. 

But, mingled in her with grief, she feels fury and disgust for the Empire and pride in the strength of her fallen comrades. And the fire slowly flickers back to life in her stomach. 

 

Seeing Cassian for the first time in a year and seven months is quite the shock to her system. Black Team 3 – as they’ve been named – has just landed in the hangar, and Biggs takes off for a mission debriefing while Amali and Aster sluggishly make for their bunks. Jyn steps off the ship and into the frigid air of Hoth with reluctance. She hates it here, hates the biting cold that never quite leaves you and the desolate tundra that surrounds them.

Shouldering her pack and shivering violently beneath only a thin coat, she trudges through the bustling pilots and departing squadrons. Her shoulder connects roughly with someone, and she turns in agitation to give them a sharp word when she freezes.

Because looking down at her is a rugged face of someone very familiar. She recognizes the handsome jawline, the dark brown eyes, the swoop of the nose, the coarse scruffiness. 

“Cassian,” she whispers breathily. Her eyes are wide, she knows, and he’s looking down at her in a mixture of exhaustion and surprise. She must look different, maybe cheeks a little more sunken, skin a little more pale, hair several inches longer and resting down over her shoulders for once. He, of course, is different too. There’s a new scar that slants across his cheek, fresh bruises around his jaw and eyebrows, and he looked like he desperately needed sleep. But he was still beautiful, still a little rough around the edges and a little worn down but he was so alive.

“Jyn.” His voice is steady and spoken in a timber that almost makes her shudder except for the sudden fury that has taken hold of her body. 

His face is calm and gives nothing away, and it pisses her the fuck off. How can he be so casual with her after he left her on Yavin IV without another word? How could he walk away from her so easily?

He must see the tightening in her eyes because he tentatively reaches a hand toward her, fingertips just barely grazing her cheek when she violently wrenches herself away from him. Gripping her pack so tight her knuckles blanch and without another word, she stalks away from him, ducking and weaving quickly through the crowd.

“Jyn!” he calls after her, but she doesn’t respond in any way.

She wants to stay, wants to stand in front of his stupid beautiful face and yell at him until she’s breathless, wants to slap him for leaving her and kiss him so hard they mold together into one.

But she walks away because the tears that burn her eyes come dangerously closing to falling and her heart has never felt so full and broken at the same time.

 

Rogue One’s second anniversary is considerably worse than the first. Maybe it’s because she avidly avoids Amali and Aster, who are undoubtedly tearing the base apart trying to find her and soothe her, or maybe it’s because she feels further away from them all – Chirrut, Baze, Bodhi, K2…Cassian – than she ever has before. She can’t remember what their voices sound like anymore or what scents they carried with them or even see their faces clearly when she closes her eyes. The pain is still fresh even though the memories seem to be fading. And she is grasping at them desperately, begging them not to leave her.

Stupidly, she goes for a walk outside the base, hoping the frigid air will numb her throbbing heart the way it numbs the rest of her body. The air feels like cold fire on her skin, and the slight fever she already has begins to worsen until it turns into violent chills and a full body ache. It works for a bit, but when it becomes incredibly difficult to maintain control of her vertigo, she heads back into the base. In her fevered daze, there’s only one place she wants to go, one person she wants to see, so she stumbles along the winding halls until she comes to Cassian’s bunk.

She doesn’t care that she walked away from him a few months ago and he didn’t follow. She doesn’t care that he stares intently at her during intelligence meetings but never says anything. She doesn’t care that she is sometimes too afraid to even give him the opportunity to say anything and does her best to shut him out. Right now, she doesn’t care that they’ve been stupid and stubborn and lost.

Her fist comes down on the metal door as hard as physically possible of her right now, and her body sags against the wall just as the door slides open. 

“Jyn?” There isn’t even an opportunity for her to lift her eyes to his face because he’s pulling her inside immediately, concerned hands brushing the hair from her face. “You’re burning up. Have you been outside? Are you crazy!”

There’s suddenly a lot of movement as he begins tugging off her damp clothes, first her heavy jacket and thick thermal shirt, then her boots, socks, and pants. Maybe it’s the fever, but she is pointedly unafraid of being naked in front of him again, welcomes his warm hands as they slide across her shoulders and her legs. While he moves away just briefly to grab one of his own shirts, she can see how rigid his entire frame is. His spine and shoulders are tensed, black hair in complete disarray, eyes bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles. The weight of Rogue One rests heavily with him today as well.

The shirt is somewhat roughly pulled down over her head, arms dragged through the sleeves, and thick socks slid onto her small feet. 

“Cassian,” her mumbled whisper stills him and finally he pauses long enough to look her in the eye. The weariness and pain and darkness she can see unfurling in the depths of them makes her chest ache more.

There’s really nothing she can say so she just groggily wraps her arms around his waist and rests her head on his chest. He takes a huge deep breath, one that she can feel shuddering beneath her ear, and presses a cheek to the top of her head. They stay this way for a long time, and Jyn can gradually feel her emotions begin to rise up her throat. It isn’t until Cassian remembers how violently she’s shivering that he moves them to the bed, leaning back against the headboard and pilling copious amounts of blankets on top of her as she settles between his legs, face pressed into the warmth of his neck.

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, accented voice breaking through the silence just as Jyn feels herself dozing off.

And just like that, the tears she had contained for so long spilled down her cheeks and splashed sloppily into his collarbone. She doesn’t let out heaving, heartbroken sobs, but she gasps faintly with each cry and curls into him as much as possible. The rebel captain brings her in tighter, one arm around her waist and a hand at the nape of her neck. She knows he is sorry for how he’s been acting and for her Papa who died on Eadu despite everything and for the Rogue One family they couldn’t save and for the life that hasn’t been kind to her. They’ve suffered lifetimes together already, watched stars shatter to dust all around them, but Jyn is glad he is the one here at the end.

“I’m sorry too,” she mumbles and means it wholeheartedly despite the fact that it comes out as a whispered slur. She thinks she feels something wet in her hair when he pulls her impossible closer.

She sleeps in his bed and in his arms the rest of the night and well into the next day. Her fever keeps her relatively incapacitated, but he refuses to let her leave his room and stays with her for the next couple of days, making sure she’s hydrated and taken care of. She slips in and out of consciousness, but every time she wakes up, he is asleep behind her, arm slung across her waist, or sitting at the foot of his bed, star charts in hand. 

On the third day, he is sent off-planet. Through her delirium, she feels him brushing her hair out of her face affectionately, whispering so close to her ear she feels the soft caress of his lips. She doesn’t cry when he tells her it may be six months before he’s back again, but her breath hitches painfully, a despairing gasp pushing past her lips. He promises that he will come straight back to her though, no more hiding, and she believes him.

The day his six months are up, Black Team 3 is sent off-planet as well, a five to six month projected completion rate. He is exiting his ship just as they are boarding theirs, but she runs to him anyway. His eyes are solemn as she gives him a rushed goodbye, but he still smiles and presses a long kiss to her hair, and her heart does a stupidly excited stutter because maybe they can officially explore that thing between them when she gets back.

She joins her team with a light heart and something that feels like hope blooming in her chest.

 

She never does make it back to Cassian on Hoth. Instead, six long months after her departure and their somber goodbye, Black Team 3 is ordered to immediately rendezvous with Black Team 1 upon completion. Jyn pretends not to be excited, but she grows fidgety and anxious when she hears the news and can’t seem to school her body into indifference. Amali and Aster give each other amused smiles, and Biggs smirks ever so slightly as he sits in the pilot seat, heavy red mustache curling upwards.

Cassian is there waiting when they land, wrapped dusty, ragged clothes, face partially covered with a dark scarf to protect his eyes from the sand being flung about in the wind. She can see his smile in the way his brown eyes crinkle at the corners, and returns it without hesitation, green eyes bright and bold. 

They don’t have time to catch up or even utter a quick hello to each other because this assignment is bound by a strict, hastily approaching deadline, and there are some extremely delicate files that need to be seized by the fall of dawn. At the end of their original assignment, they had all received word that Hoth had been evacuated as a result of Empire attack, and the information was now a priority. Apparently, the files contained the layouts and security logistics of several key Empire bases, but Biggs hadn’t been extremely detailed on that information. It was a priority mission, though, and Jyn felt her adrenaline surging as they began their stealthy infiltration.

The city reminds her of Jedha, sandy and somber and littered with heavy Empire presence. It makes her fists clench and her chest heave a little, and Cassian has to wrap a hand around her wrist several times to prevent her from acting out aggressively to any Imperial solider that eyes them a little too long.

Jyn could have laughed at how easy it was for she and Cassian, dressed as an Imperial ground soldier and Storm Trooper respectively, to slip into the data vault. The building they are in is much like the others surrounding it, built with worn stone and decorated with ages of sand. But the inside is built of cold, hard steel and metal, like any Imperial base. The perfect way to hide something in plain sight.

Cassian stands guard as she presses the unconscious guard’s palm into the sensor that would allow them access to the main vault. The metal door hisses open to reveal a cylinder of files, only two dozen at the most, and it is a relatively painless process for the ex-criminal to locate and release the one they are looking for. Everything is running smoothly and according to plan until three Imperial droids suddenly roll into the room, blasters raised.

Cassian’s hand is immediately at his own blaster, whipping it out and raining red beams onto the droids. They respond as quickly, and the air screams with the shriek of blaster beams. Jyn manages to take one droid down with a carefully aimed shot to the chest but not before pain is exploding in her abdomen, falling to her knees as her cry is nearly drowned out in the commotion.

“Jyn!” Cassian shouts, only glancing over his shoulder for a brief second before his ducking away from fire again. “We’ve been compromised,” he shouts into his wrist comm.

Jyn collapses painfully into the wall, clutching her stomach as blood soaks her black attire, Another droid pops up behind the current two, attached to his arm a canon blaster. He raises his weapon, aimed carefully toward Jyn, and fires. She lunges out of the way with inches to spare, feels the spray of rocks and metal against her neck as it connects with the wall behind her.

Woozy now from the loss of blood, she stumbles and blearily watches the cannon wielding droid collapse to the ground, Cassian’s blaster striking straight through its chest. He takes down the other droid with difficulty, a blaster shot ripping through his shoulder and knocking him to the ground. As he lays groaning, the last droid is approaching him mechanically, but its eyes are trained on her.

Weakly, she raises her blaster, aims, and hits. The droids immediately loses function, flopping to the ground in a loud clank of metal…but not before a spherical metal grenade rolls from its lifeless fingers into the main vault area where Jyn still stands.

Her eyes follow it carefully, somberly. She won’t make it, not in this condition. Cassian is standing, eyes wide and scared, and Jyn knows what he will do, knows that he will try and follow her. Almost mechanically, she slides the files away from her, where they skid along the smooth metal floors until they are safe from harm’s way. Then, she raises her blaster, aims it carefully for the access panel to the door, and shoots. It only takes her a matter of seconds, but seconds is all she has.

The metal door hisses shut, Cassian’s agonized face disappearing behind it before he can make it through. If Jyn were a crier, this is the point where she would break down. The wound in her stomach makes her legs weak and head light, but she refuses to fall. 

There is no peace this time. There are no strong arms wrapped around her back as the end approaches, no accepting breath against her neck, no comforting kiss on her temple.

She wants to live. She wants to live for Cassian and herself and for the life that was never really a life at all. And, for once, she hopes she makes it. She hopes and she hopes and she hopes. Then, she spots the massive hole in the wall where the cannon blaster hit, a clear exit right back into the desert city. They’re only two stories up; she could jump.

Her legs move forward. An explosion. And then nothing.

 

For a second, she thinks she’s on Scarif. There’s sand beneath her fingertips, heavy sun on her cheeks, pain wrapped around every cell of her body, an overwhelming sense of finality.

Her head is swimming so violently she can’t open her eyes, only struggles to take rapid, shallow breaths through the agony her body is suffering. There is a voice, deep, lilted with a familiar accent, anguished.

“Jyn. Jyn. I would have died with you.”

She knows. Managing to crack her eyes open just slightly against the reappearing unconsciousness, she almost smiles at how beautiful Cassian’s face looks silhouetted by the burning sunshine. Despite his angry, destroyed expression. Despite the excruciating bite of pain in her stomach and along her spine. Despite the death.

She laughs, wheezing and weak. “Live…live for me instead.”

 

Waking up the second time is much easier. Maybe it’s because she wants to wake up this time. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t wake up in a foggy, drug induced haze. Or maybe it’s because there’s the weight of a hand in hers, calloused but warm.

Jyn is still for several long minutes, taking deep, slow breaths, and blinking rapidly to clear the brightness from her eyes and grogginess from her head. 

“Jyn,” Cassian’s voice breaks through the haze softly, almost a whisper. She tightens her fingers around his. “You’re safe. You’re okay.”

She’s not sure if he’s telling her to assuage her confusion or reassure himself, but when his face finally comes into focus, her heartbeat picks up a little. He looks a little scruffier than usual, facial hair a little thicker than the last she’d seen him, weary lines beneath his eyes, and dark hair a complete mess.

“Don’t try and sit up,” he says, standing over her and pressing her moving torso back down into the hard cot with a firm hand on her shoulder. The medical gown crinkles and rasps a little as settles back down.

“What happened?” her voice is very hoarse, throat a little dry and sore.

Smoothing some of her dark hair back from her forehead, he eyes her affectionately, a strange mix of softness and relief and weariness. “The explosion pushed you through the hole the cannon made. You were unconscious when you fell, but you bounced off a shop awning and landed outside.” He swallows visibly. “You were in a bacta tank for a whole week. You broke a collarbone and fractured your hip but it was the damage to your stomach and spine that needed most of the healing.”

Jyn’s heart suddenly plummets to the ground when she hears of spinal damage. Frantically, she tries to sit up again, but is held down by Cassian once more. She wiggles her toes as a test and is profoundly relieved to feel them move beneath the thin bedsheet. Her heart doesn’t stop thundering against her chest though. She was so focused on the bone deep soreness of her body and abdomen, she hadn’t bothered to consider any other injuries.

“You’re going to walk again, Jyn,” Cassian says in a strong voice, a determined look on his face. “Your spine was healed, but you’ll be weak. It will take a little time, but you’ll get there again.”

There’s a promise in his voice that is so genuine, Jyn can’t help but believe it, and she allows the hope to flood her chest. Something inside her burns fiercely at the understanding she will be relatively incapacitated for quite some time, but she pushes it away stubbornly, choosing to put faith in her own strength. Cassian sits in his chair again, and the ex-criminal finally notices the way he struggles and the cast adorning his left leg. At the quirk of her eyebrow, he sighs, rough fingers pressed against the inside of her wrist as if feeling the pulse jump underneath her skin.

He clears his throat. “It only took me a second to get the door back open, and the jump was a little more than I expected. The landing didn’t go too well, but the rest of the team got there just in time. I’m surprised either of us made it back to the ship to be honest.” A wry smiles breaks his lips. “Biggs had to run with you in his arms the whole way, and Aster essentially dragged me the whole way back. We were under so much fire, it’s a miracle we all made it back alive. But we did, we made it, all of us.”

The relief Jyn feels at learning that the entire team had lived makes her breathe a little easier.

“You shouldn’t have done it, Jyn,” Cassian suddenly whispers after a brief silence, and there’s a trace of anger beneath the soft words. “I meant it. I would have died with you. There’s really no other way I could imagine going out.” 

He licks his lips, and Jyn feels a familiar burn in the corners of her eyes at his tortured expression. She lifts a weak hand to his jaw, brushes the stubble with her thumb and eyes him fondly as he leans into her touch. 

“You died with me once already, Cassian,” she says softly, gaze not breaking from his even as three medical droids begin to move toward her bed. 

He smiles at her, and it’s as blinding as the sun. “I’m with you all the way, remember?”

 

It takes her eight weeks to walk normally again, and the medical droids use phrases like “exceeding expectations” and “redefining statistics” to speak on her progress.

Cassian never leaves her side. He accompanies her to physical therapy appointments and grasps her elbow protectively as they move through the halls of the rebel rendezvous point. They recover together this time, and Jyn doesn’t wish anymore that he had been there after Scarif because she’s too busy focusing on now. Sometimes, she picks a fight with him because she’s frustrated and impatient with the healing process, disgusted with the thought of being weak or a burden, and he yells at her for being too reckless with her movements or too difficult to reason with. They don’t try to delve back into their romance immediately – despite how much they both want to – because Jyn still has her recovery to focus on and Cassian still has the occasional intelligence assignment and maybe they both feel too much that they don’t know how to move forward with it. 

But, still, they fight together. And when Cassian is busy with strategy conferences or off-planet assignments, he reluctantly – but trustingly – hands her off to Amali and Aster and Biggs. She gladly suffers the siblings’ exuberant tales and incessant teasing about Cassian and Biggs’ strong, comforting silence.

By nineteen weeks, she is running again at full capacity and by thirty she is attending normal training sessions to build up her strength. They don’t send her on anymore off-planet assignments, and she only mopes a little the two times Black Team 3 takes flight without her. She knows Cassian is relieved that they have grounded her, and she doesn’t pick a fight over it because she understands how debilitating his concern for her can be; she often feels it for him to the same extent. Loving someone is exceedingly difficult, but she manages.

When she falls asleep at night, she sees the Rogue One team in her dreams and they are all smiling.

 

The entire base is celebrating jubilantly upon the fall of the Empire. There are tears and smiles and overwhelming moments of relief, and, for once, Jyn allows herself to be caught up in it. Amali and Aster drunkenly dance and laugh with the other intelligence officers like the children they never got to be. Biggs is silent but smiling, and when Jyn sees the smallest sign of tears in his eyes, she gives him a warm smile and comforting hand to his shoulder. 

Cassian is tall and strong beside her throughout the festivities, and Jyn kisses him boldly upon the lips in full view of the entire base after several minutes. There are loud cheers and whistles, Amali and Aster – unsurprisingly – the loudest of them all. He returns it with a softness that practically makes her swoon in his arms. 

It isn’t until several hours later that they are stumbling drunkenly to her quarters, her dexterous hands already on his belt and his beneath her shirt tracing the bumps of her ribcage. This isn’t like last time. Despite the alcohol strumming warmly through their veins, there is a brightness and a clarity that makes Jyn’s chest feel full and spirit light.

Once they are completely divested of their clothing, they let their hands wander as if time is of no concept to them. Jyn’s lips trace every scar along his chest, her fingers brush along all the angles of his face and the muscles in his back, and her body quivers when he moans unabashedly at the way her mouth drags along his hard length. Cassian’s fingers pull on her hair until her head is leaned so far back that he has complete access to run his lips across the soft skin of her neck, his body presses so hard against hers that she is sure they start breathing as one, and the rough hairs along his chin scrape delightfully on the inside of her thighs as his tongue drives her to insanity.

When she straddles his slim waist and sinks down onto his pulsing member, she almost wishes they hadn’t waited so long to do this again, but she knows the timing is right this time. They move as one now, her hips shifting downward as his surge upward. Every spark of pleasure makes her push harder against him, her body lying flat over his as she rides him to oblivion. His hands can’t stay still; they grasp her hips bruisingly and glide along her back and tangle in her hair. To be consumed by someone else so completely is almost overwhelming, but Jyn embraces it instead of runs because this is Cassian and he isn’t just someone. He is everything. 

They reach the peak of their pleasure multiple times that night, with her sitting heavily atop his hips, her front pressed against the small cot and his against her back, his handsome figure towering over her as her legs around his waist urge him forward faster and harder. They match so beautifully, his brown skin against her pale skin. And he whispers first in his own language and then in one she can understand that he has visited dozens of moons, seen hundreds of stars, blazed across galaxies, but this is this first time he has ever seen stardust and it is the most mesmerizing part of the universe yet. Blissful tears slip from her eyes.

Afterwards, there is no running, no hiding, no pain. They let their naked legs tangle together and chests press and face each other silently, content.

“What do we do now?” she asks softly in the silence as he affectionately traces the length of her jaw with his thumb.

He smiles softly, and she presses her forehead into his.

“We live.”


End file.
